“I can't help but wonder what could possibly come next since we are still over a year away from the forecasted Solar Maximum (in mid-2013)?”

- Stephen Ramsden, Solar Photographer

Above: Biggest wall of plasma that many solar astronomers have ever seen photographed on November 11, 2011, by Stephen Ramsden, Atlanta. Earth superimposed for size comparison. Below: There is also a dark filament of magnetism stretching more than 621,371 miles (1 million km) around half the sun. Will it produce a Hyder flare? See: Spaceweather.com.

November 6, 2011 - Largest Sunspot Since 2005.

“It's still growing. The size is what blows me away.”

- Jess Whittington, Space Weather Prediction Center, Boulder, Colo.

The largest sunspots since 2005 are now visible from the Earth. 1339 (top center) is the largest of several sunspots that have been slowly rotating to face the Earth since November 3, 2011. Sunspot 1339 is 136,000 miles across. That's 17 times the Earth’s diameter of 8,000 miles. Sunspot 1339 erupted on November 3, with an intense X1.9 solar flare. Nov. 4 image by César Cantu, Monterrey, Mexico.

Sunspot 1339 has a Beta-Gamma Delta magnetic configuration and could produce further M-Class flares. Two new sunspots rotated into view Saturday on the eastern limb and were assigned the numbers 1341 and 1342. A third sunspot rotated into view Sunday morning and was numbered 1343. Sunspot 1338 recently released two small C-Flares.

Earth's intense October 25, 2011, geomagnetic storm provoked by the sun's strong coronal mass ejection (CME) the day before created bright auroras in a band (yellow) that dropped down from Canada over the United States as far south as Louisiana. This image created by Paul McCrone at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center used October 25, 2011, 0140 GMT, visual and infrared data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's F18 polar orbiter.

Spaceweather.com reports that “many observers, especially in the deep south, commented on the pure red color of the lights they saw. These rare all-red auroras sometimes appear at low latitudes during intense geomagnetic storms. They occur some 186 to 311 miles (300 to 500 km) above Earth's surface and are not yet fully understood.” See DMSP and Spaceweather.com.

Updated November 22 / Original October 30, 2011 Huntsville, Alabama - The third week of October 2011, solar physicists gathered in Sunspot, New Mexico, for the first in a series of three workshops to try to figure out what is happening in our sun. After nearly three years without sunspots leading into current Solar Cycle 24, physicists wonder if the sun is doing something differently, perhaps winding down into what is called a Grand Minimum where for decades the sun would not have sunspots.

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